The market for selling products to nursing homes is vast, with 16,100 such facilities in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whether you offer products you purchase wholesale and resell to nursing homes or you manufacture and sell your own unique product, the key to selling is to narrow down the market to the segment of the industry most likely to buy your product for their facility, residents or staff.

Select Your Target Market

Choosing the right segment of the nursing home industry is key to forming a niche and building a reputation among that target market for your product. Identify the demographics of your ideal market, such as the size of the nursing home and how many residents they cater to. The level of care the residents require may be another factor in narrowing down the market. Then, take a close look at the decision makers as well as the people most likely to use your product, such as nurses, caretakers, administrators or residents, since your selling methods need to appeal to both.

Develop the Right Message

List the benefits of the product you sell as you prepare to develop your marketing message. Include what it offers for the end user and why the decision maker feels it will benefit the nursing home. Describe your background in the healthcare industry. For instance, if you’re a nurse, explain why you feel confident your products will make the staff’s life easier or improve their client’s satisfaction with the nursing home. If the product is reimbursable through Medicare or secondary insurance for residents, mention this as a benefit. Explain how your product differs from the competition, and why that makes your item a better purchase.

Promote Your Product

Convincing nursing homes to buy your company’s products requires educating them by using marketing messages in your promotional pieces. Add imagery of nursing home residents or staff enjoying and using your products to your website, print materials and social media sites. Provide full information on how to purchase the product. Stay in touch with periodic email marketing messages that include testimonials from homes that use and like your product. Use the email messages to offer incentives, such as a volume discount, to encourage the facility to order large quantities of your product.

Create A Strategy

Build a strategy that helps get your message in front of prospects and eventually turns them into buying customers. For instance, send a sales letter once you obtain a mailing list for nursing homes that fit your target market demographics. Then, follow up with a sales call to answer questions and explain how the product helps solve some of the facility’s problems. If you want to sell to local nursing homes, network to meet the decision makers, and offer to provide a demonstration. If you sell to larger nursing homes that require vendors to go through a bidding process, get on their bidding list, and start preparing to explain how your product is superior to similar solutions.

References

About the Author

Nancy Wagner is a marketing strategist and speaker who started writing in 1998. She writes business plans for startups and established companies and teaches marketing and promotional tactics at local workshops. Wagner's business and marketing articles have appeared in "Home Business Journal," "Nation’s Business," "Emerging Business" and "The Mortgage Press," among others. She holds a B.S. from Eastern Illinois University.